The Colorado Independent

Reproductive Health

Weld County Board Renews Decision to Ban Plan B at Health Clinics

By | 05.08.13 | 6:28 pm

Colorado’s Weld County Board on Monday renewed a 2010 policy that prevented county health clinics funded by the federal Title X women’s health program from dispensing Plan B emergency contraception to their mostly young and low-income patients.

Colorado Supreme Court Punts on Fetal Rights, Rejects Catholic Health Case

By | 05.06.13 | 3:23 pm

DENVER– The national media storm came and went. The Colorado bishops issued their condemnation. And the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Conservative Rep. Stephens Supports ‘Abortion Pill’ in Instances of Rape, Incest

By | 02.07.13 | 10:08 am

Rep. Amy Stephens — a Colorado Springs Republican who once worked for evangelical powerhouse organization Focus on the Family — argued Tuesday against an anti-abortion proposal that would have made providing emergency contraception to victims of rape and incest a Class 3 felony.

Ideology Trumped Science in Weld County Contraception Decision

By | 02.05.13 | 10:26 am

When Weld County commissioners decided to stop providing emergency contraception to county patients, concerns rooted in anti-abortion politics trumped scientific facts and testimony provided by the county’s medical chief, according to documents obtained by The Colorado Independent.

Catholic Schooling: Bereft Father Says Catholic Health Has Got to ‘Make Their Bottom Line’

By | 01.26.13 | 2:36 pm

CANON CITY— Jeremy Stodghill isn’t the kind of Christian who believes the Gospels map an earthly alternative to life’s hard knocks.

In Malpractice Case, Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Aren’t People

By | 01.23.13 | 8:54 am

Lori Stodghill was 31-one years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page. His patient died at the hospital less than an hour after she arrived and her twins died in her womb.

Weld County Vote Against Emergency Contraception Leaves Patients Looking Elsewhere

By | 01.18.13 | 11:26 am

A controversial and unreported move by the Board of Weld County Commissioners to stop dispensing emergency contraception has forced low-income county health department patients to seek the drugs at the scant number of non-profit clinics in the area.

Anti-Abortion Activists Refine Messaging in Wake of Electoral Defeats

By | 12.14.12 | 11:09 am

After two GOP Senate candidates saw their campaigns implode when they made controversial comments about abortion and rape, Republicans like Sen. John McCain have been asking their party to just shut up about abortion.

Anti-abortion group sues over denial of federal funding

By | 12.06.12 | 7:51 am

Should taxpayer funds be used to help a “Christ centered ministry” buy and renovate a building in which it will offer Bible instruction and other services aimed at preventing abortion?

Obama taps energized Boulder supporters for crucial last-stretch turn-out-the-vote drive

By | 11.02.12 | 12:10 pm

BOULDER– In a speech that alternated between conversational asides and full-throat exhortations, President Obama rallied roughly 11,000 supporters at the packed Coors Event Center on the University of Colorado campus here Thursday. It was the latest but not the last scheduled event in the high-intensity swing-state get-out-the-vote effort his campaign here has orchestrated for the final short stretch to Election Day next week.